Click the “Start” button, right-click “Computer” and choose “Manage” to open the Computer Management window.

Step 3

Click “Disk Management” under Storage. Select the external disk drive under Volume. Right-click on the area labeled “Unallocated Space” and then select “New Simple Volume” from the menu. A wizard appears to guide you through the process.

Step 4

Enter a size for the new partition. The default value is the full capacity of the external hard drive. Choose a smaller size than the default if you intend to create multiple partitions on the drive and then click “Next.”

Step 5

Assign a drive letter to the new partition. The default is the next available sequential drive letter. Keep the default or choose another letter from the drop- down list. Click “Next” to continue.

Step 6

Choose a file system format. The choices include NTFS, exFAT, FAT, FAT32 or GPT, with the default being NTFS. Decide whether to set an allocation size, assign a label or name to the new volume or whether to enable compression. Click “Next.”

Step 7

Review the settings on the summary page and click “Finish” to complete the disk setup. Windows begins to format the external hard drive. The time it takes to complete the task depends on the size of the new hard drive and the settings.

Step 8

Close the Computer Management window once the formatting gets over.

]]>By: ToddN2000http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/partitioning-an-external-hard-drive/#comment-141938
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 13:14:29 +0000#comment-141938Partition Magic is the way to go. I have used it numerous times. I agree with the other post above, I would only use it on internal drives. I do no know of anyone in out network group that would recommend partition an external drive. Even our 3TB drives are not partitioned.
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